She's Not the Slayer
by Ebony Silvers
Summary: AU-The Pride & the New Scourge - Buffy's & Spike's relationship has been over for more than 15 years. Spike's thoughts on his current relationship. Spike's POV.


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She's Not The Slayer

by Ebony Silvers

She's not the Slayer, this woman sleeping beside me. She doesn't pretend to be, of course. She doesn't pretend much at all. One of the reasons I like her. Doesn't pretend she likes something when she doesn't. Doesn't pretend to be what she isn't. My Baby is straightforward. Says what she thinks. Doesn't hide what she feels. Decisive. Knows what she wants and goes after it. Knows her own mind. Not like the Slayer. Slayer never could suss out what she wanted.

Baby knows exactly what she wants. She knows exactly what she is and where she stands. She's intelligent, well educated, well brought up. Knows all of society's rule and ignores them when she pleases. Lives by her own rules. Doesn't worry about what her little pals think. Maybe that's because she's a lot older than the Slayer - a woman grown not one barely past girlhood. More history there, more understanding. Age does make a difference to both the mind and the body, you know.

The age doesn't show in her face; she still looks good, mind; but you can tell she's no teenager. People look at us strangely when we go out together. Think she's got some hot young number on her arm. Paid gigolo or something. Bleeding sods. Sometimes the looks are ugly. She doesn't care. Hell, if they only knew! I'm 107 years older than she is! Could be her great-grandfather. Like I said, she doesn't care. Thinks it's funny. Gets her kicks out of it. Always wanted to be a rebel, she says. Screw what they think, she says. Told you she speaks her mind. 

She's not ashamed to be seen with me. Says they're just jealous because I'm so fine and they just wish they had something half so good. Made me laugh out loud first time she told some nosy git that. She's proud of me. I can see it in the way she looks at me. See it in the way she holds herself when we're out together. Hear it in her voice when she tells some pushy minion to keep his dirty paws to himself because she belongs to me. See it in the way she gloats when I win a battle, or some chit gets her nose out of joint cause I won't give her the time of day. Yeah, she's proud of me, proud to be with me, proud to be _mine_. I catch her looking at me sometimes when she thinks I'm not paying attention. Pride and something I can't quite name shining from her eyes. Enough to give a bloke a head as big as my pouf grandsire's.

Killed a demon the other day what was after some snot-nosed toddlers – damn well thought I'd pass out from the look she gave me. If the Slayer had ever, just _once_ looked at me like that….

She doesn't look like the Slayer. Don't think I could stand that. Oh, she's not hard on the eyes. All soft curves and lushness. Full breasts, nice hips, tidy little waist; like I said, a woman not a girl. Mind you, all that softness, it's nice. You can lose yourself in her. Damn near drown in that softness. She's strong but there are no preternaturally hard muscles on my girl. 

She's taller than the Slayer by a good few inches though not as tall as me. No tiny, dainty flower is my pet. No great beauty by current standards, but she'd have had 'em lined up back when I was still breathing. Very much the Victorian beauty with the face of a medieval chatelaine. Guess I'll be writing a poem to her beauty next. I'm still such a pathetic wanker sometimes.

Anyhow, she's no California all-American girl. Nothing sun-drenched about her. No, she doesn't look like the Slayer at all. Everything's different; color, scent, sound, taste. All different. Slayer was sunflowers and daisies and yellow poppies by the shore. My dove is lilies and roses and pale violets hidden in deep woods. There are no long, blond tresses to remind me of lost sunshine. Baby's hair is dark and red, reminding me of old blood and ruby wine in the moonlight. No golden expanses of suntanned skin smelling of vanilla perfume and crushed grass. Baby is damn near as pale as I am and she doesn't wear perfume. Sometimes she smells of the gardenia and jasmine that grow in the courtyard; tea rose and spanish moss.

And her eyes – Jesus! I love her eyes. They're golden. Not brown. Not green. Nothing so ordinary as hazel. Nothing ordinary about my Baby. They're golden sea green banded with storm gray. Mystical eyes. Feline eyes. Suck you right in. Slayer's eyes were hazel, too. And they weren't ordinary and they could suck you in. They were extraordinary. You could see so much. You could see right into her soul. You could see…well I don't want to think about that right now.

Voice is all different, too. None of that barely English crap that passes as language in California. Baby's got a honey-sweet drawl covering a razor-sharp tongue that can cut deeper than any blade. Seen her make grown men cry. Perfectly behaved one minute and filthy mouthed the next. Yeah, she can be filthy when she wants to be. Oh, the delicious, obscene things she's whispered in my ear! Lovely, vile things whispered deep in the night. Decadent requests breathed on my skin while in our bed and murderous suggestions hissed in my ear while on the hunt. Mmmm, both so sweet and dark. Like bitter chocolate on the tongue. Sometimes she even tastes of dark chocolate, blood, and pain. Slayer tasted of cola, peppermint, and tears.

No, my dove doesn't deny her dark side. Likes a spot of violence and torture now and again. Gets off on it. Slayer was always going on about how it was the job and how it was her duty and how she didn't enjoy it for it's own sake. How she belonged in the light. 

The Slayer lied to herself a lot. 

Baby likes the dark. She isn't afraid of it. Says it's fun. She likes to watch me hunt. _Really _likes to watch me hunt. Told me that watching me take a good, clean kill damn near gives her an orgasm. Hey, her words, not mine. So, I take her along when I go out of a night. Who am I to deny her a bit of fun? I even let her help. I've taught her to be good with a railroad spike but she's better with that flipping great knife of hers. I love the way she smiles then and the way she tastes afterwards. Finest wine there is, boys and girls. 

Yes, my dove definitely has a talent for torture. She loves it when I find a rapist for her to play with. She loves to go off on 'em. She gets very inventive with rapists. That one last week, well, he was all over the news. That was one for the scrapbook. She tasted like honey and bitter almonds afterwards, poisonous sweet amareto. She smiled for days. I sent a copy of the article to Angelus. Bet he's still brooding over it, the poncy beggar.

She'll make a kick-ass vampire. Bloody magnificent. Be a master herself in no time. 

I'll have to turn her soon. Don't want to. I'll miss all this lovely warmth. God, I love shagging live girls; it's like making love to a bleeding volcano. But she got hurt tonight. Nothing really, just a bruise and a scratch. Could've been a lot worse. Could be that next time it _will _be a lot worse. That knee Angelus ripped up is starting to bother her more and more. Went out on her when she tried to twist away from that effin' mugger tonight. I took good care of him, mind you. Fucker looked really funny when I pulled his heart out of his chest and showed it to him. No one touches my woman. 

Flipping knee. Docs say there's nothing they can do for it. Fucking Angelus. Still, Baby got her own back at him. Busted his knees. O' course, they healed right back up but it's the thought that counts now isn't it? Took a sledgehammer to him. Kept muttering about that Lindsey bloke having the right idea but not taking it far enough. God, you gotta love her. Didn't care that it was Angel and not Angelus that she beat the shit out of, either. Said they were one and the same and anyone who thought otherwise was a God-damned idiot. She has no liking for Peaches. Refuses to call him Angel. Calls him Angelus. Does it cause she knows it annoys him. Picks on his hair and his brooding, too. Likes to wind him up and when he gets all set to go off, she whispers that one word in his ear. Reminds him of exactly what he did to her. Sends him off onto a week long brood. She fights dirty, my pet does. I told you she likes a spot of torture. Yeah, Angel doesn't stand a bleeding chance. 

And for once, I'm not compared to that ponce and found lacking. Not like with Dru or the Slayer.

Still, much as I hate me fucking grandsire, it's not Angelus' fault she ended up with a cut on her arm and a black and blue cheek tonight. Age and human mortality are what caused that. She's getting old. And old means death for humans. Can't stand to lose her so I'll turn her regardless of how much I'll hate it. Damn! I don't want some strange demon taking up residence in Baby's body. I like the current occupant just fine, thank you. I'll have to find a way to keep the real her here. Ripper's gypsy bint owes me and she'll do the spell. Actually, she'll do it whether she wants to or not. I'm not really going to give her a choice. Yeah, Angel won't be the only vampire with a soul for long. That won't be so bad. Baby all safe and undead but with what makes her well _her_ still there. I can unlive with that. Yeah, eternity with Baby. Lots worse things to contemplate. 

God, she's warm. I've had nearly fifteen years of that warmth. Maybe I'll put off turning her for a while. Six months, a year, it won't make that much difference. 

Damn, she flinched when I touched her face. Must hurt even in her sleep. She'll get hurt again one day soon. It's too risky. I'll have to do it right away. Turn her. I'll tell her when she wakes up. I can't lose her. She's my pale queen. My red, red rose. My dark dove. I love her. And she loves me. I have no doubt about that. She loves every inch of my body and isn't ashamed to show it. She loves the way I think, the way I look, the way I feel. She loves ME. Not Angel, not Angelus, not Riley Finn, not some illusion of a 'normal guy'. Me! Everything. What I was when I was breathing, what I was when I was with the Scourge, what I was with Dru, what I was when I was chipped. What I am now. Demon and Man – she loves me. She gave up everything to be with me. Gave up her family, friends, career, possessions, everything. Walked away from it all with the clothes on her back and nothing else. Even gave up her name. She's just Baby now. Spike's Baby. William the Bloody's bleeding Consort. I'm probably the only one quick above the ground who even knows what her Ma named her. 

To have that sort of devotion is like a drug. Keeps me high half the time. Not that she won't kick my ass, or at least, try to kick my ass if she thinks I'm being stupid. Or give me that 'wife' look. Yell at me, too. But through it all, I can feel the love. She's not the Slayer. Never makes me feel beneath her. Never tells me I'm a fucking _convenience_. She wouldn't think of me that way. She wouldn't beat me half to death, fuck me till the building collapses around us, and then abandon me like I was something she needed to scrape off her shoe. She wouldn't hide me from her friends or tell me I disgust her. She cares about me. She'll never leave me. And I'll spend the rest of my unlife with her because she is deeply, irrevocably _in love with me_. Just me. And I love her. 

I'm just not _in_ love with her. 

Damnable thing is that she knows it.

You see she knows she's not the Slayer.


End file.
